Another life sentence for Argentine ex-dictator
Mar 12, 2013, 10:32 PM
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) – Argentina’s last dictator, Reynaldo Benito Bignone, has received another sentence of life in prison, this time for human rights violations involving detainees inside the Campo de Mayo military base.
As many as 5,000 so-called subversives were held inside the base during Argentina’s 1976-1983 dictatorship. Most were killed and made to disappear.
This trial ended with the 85-year-old Bignone convicted of illegal arrests, kidnapping, robbery, torture and murder against 23 of the detainees, including seven women who gave birth inside the clandestine prison.
Bignone is already jailed for other crimes, but the additional conviction pleased Gaston Mena, whose mother gave birth to a sibling who was probably illegally adopted after the mother was killed.
Mena said the sentence provides “closure, but we keep looking for my brother or sister.”
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